


romantic sponges

by orphan_account



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Baker Street, Domesticity, F/F, Femlock, Femslash, First Time, Fluff, Humor, fics against humanity, girl!Watson, girl!sherlock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-12
Updated: 2012-12-12
Packaged: 2017-11-21 00:30:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,378
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/591413
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's just another night at Baker Street. Mostly.</p>
            </blockquote>





	romantic sponges

**Author's Note:**

> Written for tumblr's Fics Against Humanity Challenge, prompt #8: genderswapped. The phrases were "Sarah Palin," "the forbidden fruit," "another goddamn vampire movie," "AIDS," "party poopers," "bingeing and purging," "dry heaving," "not giving a shit about the Third World," "tentacle porn," and "getting really high." 
> 
> Title from "Let's Do It, Let's Fall in Love" because I am a hopeless sap.

“What is this drivel?” Sherlock asks, flopping dramatically (does Sherlock ever do anything without being dramatic?) onto the couch, and by extension, onto Joan.

Joan is too used to Sherlock's fits to protest the introduction of two knobbly feet into her reading. She simply picks up the book and rests it on top of them.  
“It's some American show,” Joan says. “Sarah Palin's Wild Alaska.”  
  
“It's idiotic,” Sherlock retorts, although what exactly she's retorting to Joan isn't sure. “Who names their daughter after a city? Or their son after a branch of mathematics?”  
  
Joan suppresses a retort about Sherlock's own name, knowing that it will only induce a lecture on etymology and history and possible forays into Joan's family tree. She tosses the remote to Sherlock, shakes her head at the woman's reflexes, and resigns herself to watching a two-and-a-half hour BBC special on AIDS, instead. Sherlock is not so riveted that she can't groan about the lack of detailed medical analyses of how the virus attacks the body.  
  
“Oh, not more emotional farewells! Give us a doctor! A researcher! Anything!”  
Sherlock is not appeased by the map of reported cases that flashes up onscreen. “How is anyone meant to get infection patterns from a worldwide map? There's not enough detail. Zoom in!”  
  
“Yes, we all know you don't give a shit about the Third World, Sherlock, no need to rub it in,” Joan remarks.  
  
“Joan, we've been through this before. Don't be tiresome,” Sherlock snaps.  
  
“Caring about them won't help save them, bladehbladehblah, I know.” Joan grins behind her article. She knows there's an envelope in their box addressed to the preeminent cancer researcher in the country, containing a check made out (in Sherlock's handwriting) for the exact amount Sebastian Wilkes gave them. She can't really bring herself to be upset about the missing rent. The man was a slimeball, leering at an oblivious Sherlock's chest and winking at Joan until she'd nearly decked him. She knew the images running through his head, lurid fantasies of the two of them intertwined, miles of pale smooth skin interspersed with tanned muscle, limbs tangling-- well, never mind. She'd tried to put things on a more professional level with the “colleague” gambit, but Joan's never been a very good liar. 

“Don't just tell me 'death follows within a year!'” Sherlock shouts and sits up on her heels, gesticulating wildly. “I need details! How? What are the most common causes? Symptoms? How am I supposed to see it in a corpse if they won't tell me anything?”  
  
“I doubt they tailor these programs to your specific interests, Sherlock,” Joan says, mildly.  
  
Sherlock collapses back against the headrest in a huff. “Well, they should. More people would be less painfully moronic.” 

“Oh god,” Joan groans, seeing an advertisement (“the forbidden fruit: finally his”) for Breaking Dawn: Part 2 flash onscreen. “Another goddamn vampire movie.”  
  
“I think I deleted these.” Sherlock slides up, looking faintly interested.  
  
“Be glad. Be very glad,” Joan says, rolling her eyes as a very pale, very constipated-looking man with frankly ridiculous hair glares at the camera. 

“Corpse decomposition can create the illusion of life to the untrained observer,” Sherlock observes apropos of nothing. “The cuticles and gums retract, appearing as new nail or tooth growth, and bloating often causes blood to pool in the face, giving the corpse a healthy glow.”  
  
“Well, no need to buy makeup, then. I'll just die, and then I'll get the glowing cheeks I've always dreamed of,” Joan says.  
  
Sherlock makes a noise like she's been stepped on. Joan's eyes flash up from her book, but Sherlock is staring determinedly at her hands, her hair falling wild over her face.  
  
Joan briefly thinks of asking if she's alright, but Sherlock wouldn't appreciate it, and she'd probably lie anyway.  
So she returns to the medical journal she's been meaning to read for months. She's in the middle of a vivid description of the effects of prolonged dry heaving on the abdominal musculature when Sherlock announces, “Bored,” as if this is new and fascinating information.  
  
Joan ignores her when Sherlock springs off the couch and up the stairs, although when she realizes she's read the same sentence three times she wonders, not for the first time, why Sherlock is so bloody good at intruding on her thoughts. And her sleep. And her job. And her showers.

The flat is worrisomely silent, except for the low murmur of the TV. Joan hopes Sherlock is just planning an experiment or deep in thought, not sprawled all over her bed deep in cocaine. Sherlock doesn't seem to have been getting really high since Joan moved in, but they had a terrific row when Joan came home to find Sherlock contemplating a syringe, and she knows it's still a possibility.

Joan breathes a sigh of relief when Sherlock comes flapping down the stairs, and then chokes up again when she sees Joan's laptop in her hand. “Why are there images of women being penetrated by vegetation on your computer?” Sherlock demands.  
  
“Vegetable what?”  
  
Sherlock turns the laptop around, displaying a very bosomy woman with several vines protruding from her vagina.  
  
“Tentacle porn-- dammit, Sherlock, what have you been searching?”  
  
“This one wasn't me, I swear. Do you have a fetish, Joan? May we test it?” Sherlock asks excitedly, eyes bright.  
  
“No, Sherlock-- first off, I really don't have a fetish for--” Joan waves a hand at the screen, lost for words-- “that. And even if I did, I wouldn't-- you can't just experiment on people sexually, Sherlock. Especially when they're your very straight flatmate.”  
  
“Why not?” Sherlock looks crestfallen.  
  
“You just can't, Sherlock. It's more than a Bit Not Good.” Joan is not thinking about Sherlock spread out under her, slim thighs thrown over her shoulders, the way her voice bottoms out when she's excited, the blue paths her veins trace under the pale skin of her chest.  
  
She's not thinking about that at all, especially when Sherlock grabs her wrist and stares into her eyes like she's looking for clues, or maybe the universe, inside her retinas.  
  
“You're aroused,” she states.  
  
Joan thinks briefly about lying, then gives it up as pointless. She's a shit liar, and Sherlock will see through her in about five seconds. Probably less. She chooses noncommittal silence, instead.  
  
“Your pupils are dilated, and your heart rate is elevated. You're probably producing vaginal secretions right now, and I suspect your nipples are erect.”  
  
Joan tries not to think about what Sherlock's voice saying “vaginal secretions” does to her. She's a doctor. She should not have a medical kink. She really, really, really shouldn't.  
  
“Is it the tentacle porn? I can get more.” Sherlock is already tapping away on the keys, and Joan does not want to see Mycroft's face when he reads her search history (she's very sure he, or at least a lackey, does,) so she grabs Sherlock's arm (no other motivation, really. Just thinking of Mycroft.)  
  
“It really isn't,” Joan says, and Sherlock makes a soft “oh” of realization, the pieces slotting into place. The laptop falls off the couch when Joan jumps on Sherlock (or maybe Sherlock jumps on Joan; it's all somewhat muddled.) The kiss is wet and violent and utterly uncoordinated and absolutely beautiful.  
  
“I thought you were asexual,” Joan says, coming up for air.  
  
“I thought you were straight,” Sherlock says, panting a bit.  
  
“There's always something.” Joan smiles, a bit predatory, and pins Sherlock to the couch.

Mrs. Hudson raps on the door with a tray of tea and biscuits. She's not their housekeeper, just thought it would be nice. “Yoohoo, girls,” she calls, looking around, and then sees the trail of discarded clothing leading up the stairs. “Oh, finally!” she says to the skull on the mantelpiece. “They've been undressing each other with their eyes for weeks. And the vibrator in with Sherlock's chemistry equipment, well, that was just unsanitary.” She shudders slightly. “Well, I'd hate to be a party pooper, so I'll just leave these here.” She sets the tray down on top of the discarded article on bingeing and purging, makes a brief face as her eyes fall across a particularly detailed passage, and hurries back downstairs.

The skull is grinning especially widely today.

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first time writing anything genderswapped or even remotely fluffy/cracky/this. Comments/rude remarks/"wow those body parts don't go there" welcome!


End file.
